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NovDec2003

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Good leaders not only understand how change will affect their people emotionally, but they forecast when change might occur, so that they can be more prepared to deal with it. leadership. Now your calling is not only to exercise it but to help everybody around you, especially subordinates, become better at it as well. Leadership is not just about your making the big decision, but about your training the next generation below you to be the best leaders they can possibly be.'" Change and Ethics Not only must today's leaders develop self-awareness and learn how to teach concepts of leadership to others, they must know how to cope with two of the most critical issues in busi- ness today: change and ethics. "Without question, the No. 1 theme in business in the last few years has been teaching people how to create change and to know when to do it," says Useem. About six years ago, he says, Wharton created its Center for Leadership & Change Management, dedicated to helping people understand how to "lead and how to make decisions during times of enormous uncertainty and stress. So when markets are volatile, when the world is really unpredictable, when competitors are appearing in the backyard, and when globalization leads to the lowering of national boundaries, they can be swift and sure-footed." Change and leadership are strongly linked, agrees Bolman. for granted no longer apply. "In organizations, not only does change disrupt patterns, but it often means that you'll be asked to do things that you might not understand how to do," he points out. "All of a sudden, in a sense, you've been de-skilled. That can be really scary—and infuriating." Good leaders not only understand how change will affect their people emotionally, but they forecast when change might occur, so that they can be more prepared to deal with it. The Leader to Leader Institute suggests that organizations undergo a self-assessment every three years, revisiting their missions and scanning the environment for two or three major trends that will have the greatest impact in upcoming months. "If the board of governors and the management team keep watching for change, they will always have the mis- sions and goals that serve them best," says Hesselbein. "That's one of the best ways to lead change. Then there are no surprises—that you have any control over, that is. There are always earthquakes." Just as important as the subject of change is the topic of Leaders—who are often the change agents—do not always understand that even positive change produces a sense of loss, he says. Because the leaders have already integrated their own sense of loss into the project, they have moved past its effects and are not prepared for its impact on the people around them. "But if they aren't aware of its effects, they might not be able to make sense out of what are often surprising, powerful, but sometimes subtle and hidden ways people resist change." One of the frightening things about change, says Bolman, is that it reconfigures basic routines, so that things once taken Corporate Challenge Universities that don't find ways to offer MBA students more practical experience will find themselves left behind by corpo- rations that engage in their own leadership training pro- grams, believes Noel M. Tichy of the Michigan Business School. It's a trend he predicts will continue, even if universi- ties create strong leadership programs. "Fundamentally, the leaders will be doing much more of the teaching inside the organization," he says. "Leaders develop leaders. Professors and consultants are the worst people in the world to develop them." He likens teaching leadership to rais- 34 BizEd NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2003 ethics. "My own view is that you can't talk sensibly about leadership without talking about how leadership is based on certain criteria and values," says Bolman. In the past, he notes, leadership classes took more of a how-to approach. "How do you lead? Should you be more task-oriented or more people-oriented in your leadership style? But inevitably you get to the question of purposes and values, and those have to be part of the subject matter that's taught." In fact, the ethical base at the core of any leader determines what kind of leader he will be, maintains Sorensen of Virginia Tech. "You can have a very effective leader who has no ethics, such as Hitler or Stalin; but a leader who does not have ethics creates a disastrous situation," he says. ing children. "If you had kids, would you hire a consultant or a professor to sit at your breakfast table and share your values with your children?" Since the answer is clearly "no," he believes some of the strongest leadership programs in existence are those at companies like GE, PepsiCo, Royal Dutch Shell, and Best Buy, where top executives engage directly with rising managers. Tichy taught for many years at GE's Leadership Development Center in Crotonville, New York. At the time, executives were learning from case studies and hearing lectures from professors based at a variety of elite business schools. Tichy helped reor- ganize the center so that managers began to focus on "action learning"—real work projects. "We decided to throw out the cases and bring the top executives in so we could wrestle with

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